From: ephemeral@ephemeralfic.org
Date: 28 Jan 2002 18:10:23 -0000
Subject: The Park by C and Me
Source: direct

Reply To: berngard3@yahoo.com


The Park 
by C and Me  berngard3@yahoo.com 
Date Authored:  8/21/01 
Classification:  R, V 
Keywords:  MSR 
Summary: A little conversation 
Spoilers:  6th Season, and maybe S7, well before William was a
glint in someone's eye. Disclaimer:  All characters belong to
Chris Carter, 1013 Productions and Fox Network, even if
infringement were ever intended Archive:  Anywhere you please,
just let me know

* * * 

They drove in silence in the right center lane down Interstate
95, under the glow of the orange streetlights which lined the
highway, passing and being passed by the thick stream of
after-Thanksgiving-dinner traffic headed to D.C.   Her arm was
balanced on the little ledge at the bottom of the window where it
met the faux leather of the door frame, her head massaged by
thumb and middle finger as she leaned into her hand.  Scully's
gaze was trapped beyond the roadway's edge, beyond the jersey
wall into the oblivion of night.  

It always amazed him that although this stretch of road passed
directly through suburbia which joined the two large cities of
Baltimore and Washington, beyond the highway all was black and
lifeless.  No streetlights.  No roads.  No houses leaking the
glow of lamps in the front window.  Just ... black.  Nothingness.
And in the light of day, trees.  Unending forest.  Or so it
seemed.

Mulder's gaze remained focused on the ribbon of broken lane lines
and red tail lights of the vehicles in front of him, his features
ghostly green in the glow of the instrument panel.

Thanksgiving dinner at the Scullys had been everything and
nothing like Mulder imagined.  House full of squealing munchkin
children knee-high and running full tilt after each other with
rubber swords held high, bath towels pinned to their necks like
capes.  Bill and Tara and Charlie and Sally and Maggie ... and
children.  All smiles and cheer.  The house decked for the
advancing Advent and Christmas seasons.  Scully in her element
... or so he had thought.

But she wasn't.  And because of that, neither was he.

His partner had remained moody and distant throughout the
afternoon and evening.  Polite but quiet and sullen.  Responsive
to questions but not engaging in conversation.  Not even with her
mother.  

Mulder, on the other hand, had bantered and laughed and
socialized.  He even tried to flirt a little with Scully,
something up to this night both unaccomplished and unsuccessful
in the extreme.  Maggie had been her usual bright and welcoming
self, ever watchful of her guests' needs, ever ... mindful of her
guest's past.  Mulder wondered for the millionth time if she
remembered Melissa's death every time she looked at him.  For
that matter, did his presence recall pictures of Scully's
abduction and deathbed return, her cancer, Emily, the frost burns
she sported after their sojourn to Antarctica?  Or did he just
remind his partner's mother that once Scully laughed and giggled,
not so long before she met Fox Mulder?

Suddenly, as the green and white sign for the Route 100 exit
loomed above them on the metal crossbrace, Mulder switched lanes
to the right and signaled his exit.  

"Mulder!" Scully braced icily from her seat next to him, grabbing
at the internal handle to steady herself.  "Where are you going?"

"Away," was all he responded, his face tightening into hard lines
of determination.  

" 'Away' where?"  Her voice was becoming shrill, an unmistakable
indication of Scully's dissent.

"Away this way," Mulder replied as he reached the top of the ramp
and turned the car east into the dark night.

Scully could portend what was occurring.  Mulder the Ever
Petulant was taking an unnecessary tangent, an attempt to force
her to listen and respond.  "Mulder, put the car back on the
highway and let's go home," she ordered sternly, straightening in
her seat.

"No."

Scully whipped her head in his direction, taking in the set of
his jaw, the steel of his forward gaze.  "Mulder," she repeated,
a little more definitively, a lot more angry.  "Turn the car
around and put us back on the highway.  I don't want to do this
now."

No response.

"Mulder," she growled, crossing her arms tightly across her
chest.  In the silence of the car, Mulder could hear Scully's
rough and angry breathing.

"No."  Same unwavering determination, same clench of his jaw.  

"Mulder.  Now."  Scully hissed, her ire and voice rising as the
car sped into the night farther and farther away from the
interstate.  

He ignored her, until out of the corner of his eye he saw her
shoulder slump in defeat as the anger gave way to a weary
tension.  "We're going to talk," Mulder directed quietly, firmly.

"We don't need to talk."  She ground the words at the windshield,
clipped and certain.  "We have nothing about which we need to
talk," Scully noted succinctly through gritted teeth, her own jaw
locking into characteristic stubbornness.   "There is nothing
wrong, Mulder."

"We need to talk," he reiterated, his voice soft, the pain
unmistakable to his partner, the rigidity of his determination
unwavering.

Scully huffed a sigh and fixed a stare out her window, her hands
twisting in her lap.  Only then did Mulder chance a glance in her
direction, noting the indignation in the set of her posture, the
worry in the movement of her fingers as they clenched and
released her coat.

He kept a steady speed, turning with the road, traveling further
into the darkness of a night punctuated only by the vehicle's
headlights, the pavement becoming ever more narrow, the slope of
the hills less steep.  Signs of civilization became rare, evened
out until they disappeared altogether.  At first the couple
passed a housing development off to their left, townhouses on the
right.  A corner drug store and gas station.  A small market,
closed for the holiday, next to a darkened diner announcing
"Eats", the lights of both establishments extinguished, their
neon signs turned off.  A deserted intersection with traffic
lights.  A country church and accompanying graveyard, silent and
black in the night.  Then ... nothing.  

The road ended at a park, picnic tables forlorn and remotely
spaced among the few trees.  In the fan of the headlights, Mulder
could see a small beach, water lapping its sand the twenty feet
it was wide, maybe forty feet long if you could stretch it.

Mulder switched off the car and the lights, plunging them into
darkness.  He and Scully sat silently in the night among bare
tall oaks and maples, the green grass of the park now black with
the hour and season, the silver slip of beach before them.  He
blinked slowly, trying to imagine what he could say, where he
could start, what would draw her out to explain the uncomfortable
evening and growing tension between them.

"What ... ," he started hesitantly, his voice hushed by the lump
in his throat.  "What did I do?  What did I do, Scully, to ... to
make you ... like this?  Like ... like...."  Like what?  Mulder
wracked his brain.  'Like you hate me,' sprang immediately to the
fore, but even the most juvenile part of him could not bring
himself to enunciate such a conclusion, much less truly believe
it.

Scully stared straight ahead, also lost in a search for words
which would at least not harm even if they could not heal.  There
it was again, Mulder's overwhelming ability to fault himself with
the emotions, the actions of others.  What *had* he done, if
anything?  Been kind enough to accompany her tonight to a family
event which in the past had been tedious at best, downright
painful at its worst.  Charmed her mother and sisters-in-law.
Prattled sports with her brothers, even with the sullen Bill who
seemed this year on better behavior than ever where her partner
was concerned.  Maybe Bill finally -- reluctantly to be sure
-reconciled himself to Mulder as a fact of Scully's life.  Maybe
not.  Maybe Maggie had put her foot down this time before Scully
and the man of the hour appeared.  Mulder had played on the floor
with her nephews, allowed them to chase him down the street when
he caught the football, let them tackle him on the sofa in a
tickle fest.   

Laughed. 

He had laughed and enjoyed himself, and she had locked away all
those pleasantries and struggled to retain some semblance of her
formal, stoic, FBI persona.  Scully had fumed all the while
silently because he insisted on joining her today.  Crashing her
party, even if she wasn't in a party mood.  Forcing his way into
her personal life, as if he had not performed that little dance
step for the last six ... seven years.  She didn't need a moody,
petulant partner in her life.   Then neither did he, she mused,
forgiving him his good grace to care.  

"Nothing," Scully responded quietly into the rapidly chilling air
of the car.  "You did nothing.  It wasn't about you."  She lied.

"The *hell* it wasn't!"  Mulder exploded as he quickly unlatched
his seatbelt and scrambled out of the vehicle, slamming the door
in his wake.  

'The hell it was,' she remonstrated herself silently.  'It was
all about you ... all and forever ... about you.'  

Slowly Scully extricated herself from the car and followed him
across the grass, joining him as he stood before the sand.  "What
do you want from me, Mulder?"  She grimaced at the whine in her
voice.

Mulder turned to her -- *on* her, she mentally corrected -- his
eyes large.  Even on a night with low clouds, no moon or light,
she knew he was startled by the question from the look she
imagined crossed his shadowed face and the hold he took of his
breath.  

"What do I want from you?"  Mulder parroted with barely disguised
incredulity.  "What do you want from *me*, Scully?"  His voice
almost screeched his disbelief at her question, his hands blindly
tapping his chest in emphasis.   "What is it, Scully?  Did I
misbehave tonight around your family so much that you ... you
were *embarrassed*?  Did I eat with the wrong fork?  Hold my
coffee cup at the wrong angle?  Ask the wrong questions?  Talk
about the wrong subjects?  Or was it just that I was *there*?"

'Truth hurts,' she reminded herself.  'Bear it.'

"Is that it, Scully?"  He continued his barrage.  "Was it just
the fact I wanted to be with you and around your family on a
holiday, rather than holed up in my hovel of an apartment eating
cold pizza and watching reruns of bad porno flicks?  What is it,
Scully?  I'm not *allowed* to enjoy my holiday?  I'm not supposed
to have something normal and pleasant in my screwed up life?"
Mulder's voice began to tighten around the lump in his throat,
breaking on his words, quieting as he fired his last salvo at
her.  "I'm not supposed to have family times, Christmas carols,
laughter because I'm *Mulder* -- that sulky guy from the office
always in a black mood.  Is that it, Scully?  I'm not good enough
for that?  For you?"  He turned away from her, his eyes shifting
back to the Bay, as he tried to regain his breath and calm his
heartache.  He prayed fervently the tears he felt stinging his
eyes would remain within their limited confines.  Damned things!
Always wont to escape at the most inopportune moments.

Scully bit her lip, forcing her own tears down as she watched
him, his back straight in the night, a cold harbinger of the
bleakness she imagined she'd face if this man were ever to
disappear from her life.  She knew if she pushed and kicked long
enough, she'd finally break that backbone and force Mulder to
leave, and emptiness would fill the void.

"You were ... nice," Scully revealed quietly, blinking rapidly as
the tears she fought to hold in check filled her eyes.

Mulder spun on her, his head cocking slowly, incredulous he heard
such a mundane explanation.  "Nice?"  He repeated, his breath
still steaming in pants.  "Nice?  And I'm ... what? ... not
supposed to be?  I can be nice.  I always thought I was rather a
nice guy ... even if I continue to finish last."  He tried for
his own brand of humor, its joviality feigned and too weak to
fill the void he felt crashing in his chest.  "Nice?"  He
narrowed his eyes as he took in the shadow of her face, her eyes
glistening with tears.  "Is that too much for you?"  Mulder asked
quietly, sardonic.  "You don't think I'm nice?  Is that something
so ... so *rare* from me you can't handle it?  It doesn't fit in
with your conception of Fox Mulder?"

"No," Scully choked as the tears spilled down her face, shaking
her head.  Scully hated it when she cried, even in front of
Mulder, even though he had been the only one to see her tears in
so many years.  

"No?"

She silenced a sniffle, drawing breath through her mouth to
respond.  "No ... I didn't mean it like that, ... Mulder."  Her
voice was barely audible over the lap of the water on the shore,
her hands stuffed deep into the pockets of her overcoat, her
fists tight as her nails dug into her palms.  Nothing ... nothing
in her arsenal would refocus the pain and anguish, keep the tears
at bay.  Months of tension and distance between the partners
flared, culminating in a chilly evening at the shore of the
Chesapeake Bay on Thanksgiving night with snow hanging pregnant
in the air.  Even though they stood barely three feet apart,
Scully felt as if a cavernous gulf lay between them.  "You *are*
nice," she reaffirmed.  "To me ... to my family.  The kids loved
you.  I-I just wasn't ... uhh ... ready for that ... ready to see
you so relaxed around them.  They ... they loved you ...
tonight."

The one conclusion rippled through Mulder's mind like concentric
rings in a still pond disturbed by the jettison of a skipped
stone, sinking light lead at the end of its too short flight..
'And you ... didn't ... don't.'

The silence stretched between them, widening the canyon.   The
pebble in her throat made breathing difficult, its grip on
Scully's chest ached.

Mulder stared at her, his face dark and clouded, focused on the
pain he saw in her eyes.  There was more, something deeper which
she was trying to hide.  Something which perhaps she had been
hiding for years now.  The vulnerability was closer to the
surface tonight more than ever.  As much as he hated the thought,
Mulder knew if he didn't exploit the situation, Scully would clam
up again, perhaps more fully, more resolutely than before.

Mulder took a deep breath, relaxing his hands which had balled on
his hips and letting his arms dangle at his side.  "What,
Scully?"  He asked quietly.  "What is it?  What hurts so much?
What is it about me being around your family which hurts you like
this?  You see your sister -- or her absence -- when I'm there?
You *finally* see I'm the cause of that, even though you don't
want to admit it to yourself?  You see the children I've taken
away from you?  The family you will never have?  And I'm right
there in the middle of all that ... that happiness ... a ... a
black hole which sucks it right out of a joy-filled room ...?"  

It wasn't a question, she knew.  How could he look into her so
deeply to see the things inside she didn't wish to examine?
Things she strove to keep under lock and key?  

"No," she whispered hoarsely, closing her eyes and letting the
tears spill down her cheeks unchecked as she lowered her head.
"Not that.  Never that."

"Then what?"  Mulder's voice matched hers in timbre.  The
shakiness of her words was not lost on him, knowing it belied a
certain measure of truth.

Mulder took a step toward her, resting his hands lightly on her
shoulders, trapping her in the spot on the shore, forcing a
response.  "Tell me, Scully," he beseeched softly.  "Please."

Scully closed her eyes tightly, placing him out of sight.  If she
just talked to the air, he wouldn't hear.  Right?  If she just
spoke the words, she'd feel better.  It would be out there,
hanging suspended in the thick atmosphere of tension surrounding
them.  With its announcement she would be admitting ...
*everything*.  Every emotion.  Every long held desire.  Every
tender touch.  Every vulnerability.  Every need ... of him ... to
him.  And she would become another grain of sand on this shore,
crumpled and broken and lost.  Nothing left inside her.  Nothing
left of her.  To blow away with the first staunch wind which came
along.  To be scraped off the bottom of someone's shoe -- *his*
shoe -- when he no longer needed her in his life.  He had brought
her to this, this final debasement of Dana Scully.  There was no
woman, no agent, no person left.  Just a worn, battered, tired
shell.  

Maybe it was time for Mulder to know what Mulder had done.  Not
taken away her sister.  Not carved up her life and body, but her
soul as well.  Maybe he should know there was nothing left but
the shell, for that was all Scully felt as she stood before him.
A shell she fought to maintain for years.  And for what reason,
she asked herself.   To die here?  To be left barren and unused
... unwanted ... undesired by the one man she desired?  If there
was to be pain, why not make it his as well?

"I can never give you that," Scully murmured hushed and weak.
There, the truth was out, her heart opened to the final assault.
Could she make the denouement complete?  Could she admit to him
she could never give him that joy, that family, that it could
never be the two of them together?  Some dreams were not meant to
come true.

A crease appeared in Mulder's forehead.  "You can never give me
that?  What ... what are you ... saying?"

"I-I look at you ... like you were tonight -- playing and
laughing and having fun, and ... and enjoying the children -- and
I know you should have that in your life.  You would be a great
father, Mulder.  And ... and I know I would ... I have lost you
... because ... because I could never give you that."  Scully
ended on a gossamer's breath of a whisper, her eyes downcast, too
unsure of what she would see if she raised her head.

In his years at the Bureau people had admired Mulder his eidetic
memory for its ability to record and recall, his analytical
skills for profiling.  But to Fox Mulder, it was his hearing
which he secretly appreciated.  Acute and keen.  Unforgiving most
of the time.  On occasion he would be angered by what his ears
picked up:  comments not meant for his notice, slights and barbs
to which he was not supposed to be privy, biting comments about
the woman he loved.   On the shore of the Chesapeake Bay, Fox
Mulder found his hearing aciculate beyond belief, as his heart
soared in a blue, blue sky, dipping and spinning with disbelief
and surprise.  His breath caught somewhere around twelve thousand
feet, and his heart raced outpacing the best at the Indy.

He gasped at her disclosure.

"Scully," Mulder sighed tremulously as he slowly drew her into
his embrace, lowering his face into her hair.  He closed his eyes
as if in benediction.  What grace had showered upon him in the
black of this park?  What unannounced wonder had crept into his
life, still and strong and sure in the form of the woman he held
to his chest?  He felt like laughing and crying and whooping for
joy all at once, knowing such a reaction would be inexcusable in
the gravity of the moment.

His hand came up to cup the back of her head, keeping Scully
pressed to him.  Somewhere he felt her fingers slide up his back,
clawing at his jacket, anchoring and securing her to him.  Her
shoulders shuddered under his arm, and he knew she was weeping
quietly.  "Oh, Scully," Mulder sighed again, placing a small kiss
in her hair, tightening his arm more fully around her.

He drew back only so far as necessary to cup her face in his
large hands.  Even in the dark Mulder could see the slump of her
shoulders, feel the weightiness of her head as if every strength
within her drained out, his hands the only thing holding her
steady.  "Scully," he whispered.  "Is that what you want?  What
you've wanted?  Us?  To be ...  ?"  He left the question
unuttered, its subject foreign and unprecedented on his tongue.
Mulder slid his arms back around and drew Scully to him again.
"Goddamn, woman!"  He chuckled softly, rocking her gently.  "Why
didn't you *say* something?"  

Anger surged in her.  Scully felt indignation rise, slowly
boiling forth from an unrecognized pit deep inside.  She
struggled to free herself from Mulder's arms, a fire lighting her
eyes.  But just as quickly as the ire came, it flew.  Decorum
warred with a chilled stoicism.  This was not her.  This was not
Mulder.  Together?  Them?  She shrugged off the thought, pleasant
as it may have once seemed.  She could not let him believe there
was even this one area of weakness in her.

"No," Scully shrugged, rolling her shoulders as Mulder's hands
slipped from them.  "No," she started again.  "That's not--"

"No!"  Mulder barked, bracing one of her shoulders with his palm,
his free hand coming up to shake at her.  "Don't, Scully!  Don't
you dare ...  ,"  he glared at her as he bent to bring his face
to her down turned one.  "Don't you deny this!"

Mulder turned in his stead, grabbed her hand tightly and drew her
after him toward the closest picnic table.  His motion was sudden
and caught her off guard, causing Scully to stumble after him the
few paces it took to cross the grass.  Stopping at the end of the
table, Mulder pulled Scully to the front and hoisted her to sit
on the table top.  The new position brought their eyes level.

Bracing his hands on either side of her hips Mulder leaned in,
reclaiming her personal space.  "Don't you deny this, Scully," he
admonished, beginning gruffly but ending on a gentle and
exasperated exhalation.  "Please ... not this."

Scully's eyes remained wide in shock at his actions.  She was
sure her heart would pound its way from her chest, no longer
needing Padgett's nemesis to help in its extraction.

Mulder straightened and stepped closer, until his legs brushed
hers and her knees struck his stomach.  He dropped his eyes,
seemingly mesmerized by the track of his hands as they stroked
her forearms.  "Scully," he began, his voice hushed, his heart
thumping wildly.  "Dana," he amended quietly, tasting the word
and finding it intimately agreeable.  "I-I'm sorry if I brought
those memories to you."  There, start with the obvious, a topic
further from that which loomed around them.  "I-I've...."  Mulder
swallowed, trying to decide where to begin a discourse so foreign
to him, yet one he'd conducted mentally for years.  "I told you
once that I loved you ... in the hospital ... after that time on
the Queen Anne."  He shrugged his shoulder, hoping the effort
would appear nonchalant and she would remember one of his many
apparitions she had chosen over the years to ignore..  "I did ...
I *do*.  I meant it then, even if you didn't believe me."  For
the first time in his little speech Mulder looked up to her face,
to her eyes, seeking acceptance.  

Scully's eyes were wide, her cheeks tearstained.  Her mouth hung
open as her head cocked slightly to the side.   Her breath was
ragged as it caressed his face with a warmth unnatural in late
November.  

"I never ...  ," Mulder attempted again, swallowing hard.  "I
never had much hope there ever could be an 'us'.  Is that what
worries you?  That I wouldn't want you ... barren?"

Scully drew a quick breath, then swallowed, but did not respond.
This conversation was going from strange to bizarre to a nether
world all its own.                                               

Mulder looked at her quizzically, awaiting her answer.  "Scully?"

Slowly Dana Scully nodded her head, still unsure what was
happening between them, even if her action was an admission.
After years of trying, she could no longer deny Fox Mulder one
iota of truth, no matter what it cost her.

Mulder's face softened, his eyes luminescent with his own unshed
tears.  "Oh, Scully," he exhaled, shaking his head.  "No.  Never.
That would never stand in my way."

"Then what ... has?"  Scully was as surprised as he that she
found her voice, even if it was to query such an untenable
question.

Mulder chuffed awkwardly, his eyes growing wide as he cocked his
head at her.  "Scul-lee," he droned in exasperation.  "You know
... what ... has.  Us ... our partnership ... the Bureau ... the
... work."

Her eyes skittered away from him, unable to watch him falter any
longer, beginning to feel the weight of failure press on her
shoulders.   For years Scully too used these excuses to keep her
feelings for Mulder at bay, but more and more found them lacking
in  substance if not also in veracity.   "The truth, Mulder," she
beseeched.

He hesitated, lowering his eyes against the piercing stare she
fixed upon him.  "I didn't think you wanted this," he admitted
quietly to his fingernail, it becoming somehow fascinating to him
in the black of night where it scratched at the rough plank of
the table beside her hip.  "I mean, who would want a fuck up like
me?  Bad luck, bad life, bad karma and all that.  You have so
much more going for you and you deserve so much better."

It was Scully's turn to chuff at his self-deprecation.  She
rolled her eyes and let out a sigh.  Mulder could be so ...
Mulder!  

"If I believed that, Mulder, there would be someone else ...
there.  Someone at home waiting for me.  Someone else going to my
mother's for Thanksgiving dinner.  The only thing 'bad' we have
going for us is timing.  Always bad timing."  She stopped and
considered her words carefully, her voiced falling to a hushed
hesitancy.  "I-I *do* want this ... *us*.  Have for a long time,"
Scully shrugged.  "But I can't give you happiness.  I can't give
you a family, and you're so good with kids.   You belong in a
place with kids, with someone who could give you children ... the
childhood you never had.  I'm not *she*.  I can't give you that
... what you saw tonight ... as much as I want to."

Mulder shook his head slowly, releasing a scornful sigh.  "You
and I must have different definitions of 'happiness'.  I don't
need that.  I don't need holidays and family dinners on every
occasion possible to be *happy*, Scully.  This little
conversation we're having tonight will go a long way in that
arena ... for years."  He stepped closer, between her relaxed
legs and settled his hands on her waist.   As he sombered his
voice dropping to a whisper.  "I love you, Scully.  You alone
make me happy.  Having you in my life the little I do is enough
to shower me with joy.  Don't you know that?"

A tear trickled down Scully's cheek as she watched the man before
her, head bowed and voice shaky.  

"I *love* you," he repeated in the quaver of his breath, as if
surprised by his own enunciation of a truth long resisted.

"Mulder," Scully expelled, mesmerized by the beat of the pulse in
his neck, matching her own measure for measure.  Her chin
trembled and she knew she could not hold back the onslaught of
tears for long.  In the chilled air she reached her hands for
him, grabbing onto his lapels and pulling him toward her so she
could slide her arms up his shoulders and around his neck.
Mulder's hands gripped her waist, one moving slowly to the middle
of her back, drawing her closer to him.   

She closed her eyes and let the tears fall, bathing his neck with
their moisture.   As she inhaled, Scully let the dam of her
resistance crack, weaken, breached by years of denial and sorrows
until it overflowed, exiting her body in wracking, undulating
sobs.  Mulder held on tightly, her small body trembling with each
expulsion, her keening muffled in his jacket.  Where her cries
that night on his floor after Padgett's creation attacked were in
relief for her denial of death and its accompanying fears,
tonight her sobs were the release she'd long held in check, tears
for the loss of  her life as it could have been, and the years of
denial of the happiness of which Mulder spoke.  

He held her, stroking her hair, rocking lightly.  

In time Scully quieted, taking deep, gulping breaths of crisp air
as her head lay against Mulder's shoulder.  Her grip around his
neck did not slacken, nor did his on her.  

Scully brushed the tears from her cheeks vainly when she lifted
her head.  Reaching into his back pocket, Mulder produced a
folded handkerchief.  "Let me do that," he said tenderly, wiping
at the moisture which clung to her chin.  

"Tonight, Mulder," she said with a watery half-voice.  "Tonight
at the dinner table when we were going around and saying what we
were thankful for, I....  I'm thankful for having you in my life.
Thank you for being my friend."

Mulder leaned down and brushed his lips lightly across hers.
"You're welcome," he mumbled at the corner of her mouth.  

As he withdrew Scully caught him around the back of his neck, her
fingers slipping among his silky hairs and drawing him back.  Her
lips slid hesitantly over his, one way ... then returning to the
other.  Mulder's hands reached up to steady her head, holding her
still as their lips met a third time, their kiss lingering and
chaste.  

"Scully," he sighed as he withdrew, and rested his forehead
against hers.    

In the bleak winter night their eyes locked, passion and
affection flaring deep from within.  He cleared his throat as his
hands dropped to her shoulders.  "Miss Scully, may I have the
honor of seeing you home?"

Scully expelled a deep sigh, considering her options.  "Mulder,"
she replied in time.  Feeling his arm tense, she continued, her
voice lowered.  "Will you stay ... stay with me ... tonight?" She
watched the astonishment settled wide on his face. Nervousness
fluttered in her chest.  "Please?  I....  You're what makes me
happy ... and I don't want to say 'good-bye' to that ...
'good-night' ... not tonight ... not ever ... if you want this
broken woman."

Mulder shook his head sadly.  "Oh, Scully.  You're not broken ...
not in my eyes.   And it would be my honor ... my pleasure ... to
accompany you anywhere, any time, any place you wish."

"Even to ... bed?"

"Even to bed ... especially to bed," he chuckled.  Stepping back
he extended his hand to her.  With Scully's fingers wrapped in
his, she slid off the picnic table and settled an arm around his
waist.   Mulder's palm came to rest across her shoulder, drawing
her into the shelter of his side.

They turned toward the car, for the first time noticing the large
sloppy flakes drifting slowly from the sky to land on the carpet
of white at their feet.

*** 

the end